Ants

Posted
on January 28, 2014

Ants are among
the most prevalent pests in households. They are also found in restaurants,
hospitals, offices, warehouses, and other buildings where they can find food and
water. On outdoor (and sometimes indoor) plants, ants protect and care for
honeydew-producing insects such as aphids, soft scales, whiteflies, and
mealybugs, increasing damage from these pests. Ants also perform many useful
functions in the environment, such as feeding on other pests (e.g., fleas,
caterpillars, termites), dead insects, and decomposing tissue from dead
animals.

Inside
buildings, household ants feed on sugars, syrups, honey, fruit juice, fats, and
meat. Long trails of thousands of ants may lead from nests to food sources,
causing considerable concern among building occupants. Outdoors they are
attracted to honeydew, produced by soft scales, mealybugs, and aphids. This
liquid excrement contains sugars, and other nutrients. Frequently outbreaks of
scales and aphids occur when ants tend them for honeydew because the ants
protect scales and aphids from their natural enemies.

Ants have been
living on the Earth for more than 100 million years and can be found almost
anywhere on the planet. It is estimated that there are about 20,000 different
species of ants. For this reason ants have been called Earth's most successful
species.

Ants can bite
with their pincerlike jaws, although most species rarely do. The velvety tree
ant, however, is an aggressive biter. A few ants sting, including native fire
ants and harvester ants, which are primarily outdoor species.

Ants build many
different types of homes. Many ants build simple little mounds out of dirt or
sand. Other ants use small sticks mixed with dirt and sand to make a stronger
mound that offers protection from rain. Western Harvester ants make a small
mound on top, but then tunnel up to 15 feet straight down to hibernate during
winter. Ant mounds consist of many chambers connected by tunnels. Different
chambers are used for nurseries, food storage, and resting places for the worker
ants. Some ants live in wood like termites. Army ants don't make a home at all
but travel in large groups searching for food.

Ants are social
insects, which means they live in large colonies or groups. Some colonies
consist of millions of ants. There are three types of ants in each species, the
queen, the sterile female workers, and males. The male ants only serve one
purpose, to mate with future queen ants and do not live very long. The queen
grows to adulthood, mates, and then spends the rest of her life laying eggs. A
colony may have only one queen, or there may be many queens depending on the
species. Ants go through four stages of development: egg, larva, pupa, and
adult.

Ants have three
main parts. The head, the trunk(middle section), and the rear or metasoma. All
six legs are attached to the trunk. The head consists of the jaws, eyes, and
antennae. The eyes of ants are made up of many lenses enabling them to see
movement very well. The antennae are special organs of smell, touch, taste, and
hearing. The metasoma contains the stomach and rectum. Many species of ants have
poison sacks and/or stingers in the end of the metasoma for defense against
their many predators. To see a diagram and learn more about ant anatomy visit
our Ant Anatomy page.

Ants do not have
lungs. Oxygen enters through tiny holes all over the body and Carbon Dioxide
leaves through the same holes. There are no blood vessels. The heart is a long
tube that pumps colorless blood from the head back to the rear and then back up
to the head again. The blood kind of coats the insides of the ants and is then
sucked into the tube and pumped up to the head again. The nervous system of ants
consists of a long nerve cord that also runs from head to rear with branches
leading to the parts of the body, kind of like a human spinal cord.

If you watch
ants for any length of time you will see that they really do communicate with
each other and very effectively too. Ants communicate by touching each other
with their antennae. Ants also use chemicals called pheromones to leave scent
trails for other ants to follow.

There are over
12,000 species of ants throughout the world. In the United States there are
about 200 species but fewer than a dozen are important to us as pests. One of
the most common ant occurring in and around the house and garden in is the
Argentine ant, Linepithema humile. Other common ant pests include the pharaoh
ant (Monomorium pharaonis), the odorous house ant (Tapinoma sessile), the thief
ant (Solenopsis molesta), and the southern fire ant (Solenopsis xyloni). The
velvety tree ant, Liometopum occidentale, nests in old wood and is a common
outdoor species in landscapes.

Of great
importance, is the red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, which has recently
gained in greater numbers throughout the southern United States. In some areas,
the spread of the fire ant has been slowed by competition from the Argentine
ant.

Carpenter ants,
Camponotus spp., also invade buildings all over America. Although they do not
eat wood as termites do, they hollow it out to nest and may cause considerable
damage.